Navigation

home code debian images resume weblog wiki

Older news:

Dec 11, 2006:

Debian GNU/Linux

About lychnis.net
Jul 7, 2005:
Wanneer gebruik je -d en wanneer gebruik je -t?
Feb 18, 2005:
Mixing whitespace
Jan 10, 2005:
The difference between dogs and cats
Dec 22, 2004:
Sunrise in winter
Dec 12, 2004:
New site layout

Browse:

Copyright © 2003-2004 Ivo Timmermans. Unless otherwise specified, all material on this website (including any images, sound files, and other original works) may be distributed under a Creative Commons License. (more about this site)

New site layout/site

Posted on 2004-12-12 by ivo :: /site :: link

I have changed the site design again, the old one got boring. The new layout is vaguely based on an article from A List Apart, called Creating Liquid Layouts with Negative Margins.

The layout works like I intended in mozilla, opera and konqueror, and looks not-entirely-horrible in internet explorer. The latter looks fixable, and I'll try to do that some time soon. I will probably be tweaking the layout for some time to come.

Everything in the right-hand column is static, by the way. I had been struggling with some blosxom plugins to generate a photo album, but none of them did what I wanted them to do. So another item for the wishlist of wirescape plugins is a photo-album plugin.

lychnis.net live/site

Posted on 2004-01-12 by ivo :: /site :: link

My new domain lychnis.net is alive, and I created a brand new website for it. Take a look at the information about the site to find out what it means, or just go there.

The new site is also based on blosxom, with a few minor modifications to some of the plugins (most notably the hide plugin). The articles are the same as in the weblog. Only the most recent article is shown on the frontpage, the rest can still be read by clicking on weblog in the navigation bar at the top.

Font sizes/site

Posted on 2004-01-03 by ivo :: /site :: link

Someone has been complaining that the fonts on this website are too big. This comment touches a subject that I've often enraged myself about: default font sizes in browsers.

For some reason or other, Microsoft ships Internet Explorer with a rather large default font size setting. People aren't exactly inclined to change anything, so most of the IE users will be using this default. This has inspired web designers all over the world to specify smaller fonts on their websites, to make it look acceptable in IE.

Mozilla ships with a default font size of 16 points, I always change that to 12 points to be able to read pages that don't specify anything in a comfortable font size. This does mean that I see websites that were designed for IE (which is a bad thing to do at any time) with very small, nearly illegible text.

I designed the layout of this website for my own browser, and it looks good (well, acceptable) in Internet Explorer, when you change the font to “Smallest”. I will not change the size of the fonts here, people should configure their browsers to display fonts in the size they like. If you keep the default of IE or Mozilla, you get what you asked for: large letters.

/site :: link

You may have noticed I added the "Hacker logo" to the bottom right of this page somewhere last week. Of course I first read about it when it appeared on slashdot. The reactions there were mostly negative, with arguments such as:

  • Hackers don't need a logo;
  • It will be abused by crackers and other dubious figures;
  • The media will use it for anything related with computers, and bedazzle its meaning;
  • Why does Eric Raymond want his statue carved in the face of the moon;
  • Why did he have to chose a glider that moves down?

Personally, I like the idea of having a logo. Like it says in the FAQ, having the logo on your website doesn't make you a hacker; that is a title you have to earn. Instead I want to show my sympathies to the hacker culture, show anyone that I share visions.

I agree somewhat with the sentiments that "a gun crazed wack job that would scare most moms out of the day care center". Like Richard Stallman once said at an edition of FOSDEM, It doesn't help your case for free software if you mingle your views with political statements. People will close their minds for your arguments for free software if you also make statements that they disagree with, even if they are in a different field.

But even so, Eric has done a lot of good work for the open source/free software world in general. I have never met him in person, I wouldn't know if he deserves any of the criticism he gets. In any case, it would be unfair to refuse to use the hacker logo solely because you disagree with Eric.

The idea to take a glider for the logo is brilliant, of course. It's simple, and could be represented in ASCII very well. I don't care much that Eric chose the one that goes down, any variant would do. Plus I think this one looks good :) I've just become interested in finite state machines and cellular automata.

I don't fear much for usage of the logo by people who aren't hackers in the original meaning; "we'll find some way to shame and reject you publicly if you mess with ours."

And the media, well… that's just a matter of consequently using the image as a link to Eric's explanation page. People will pick up its real meaning, and if they don't they should be politely corrected. I hope the real hackers among us are civilized enough to keep their anger down if anyone uses it in the wrong way.